Halloween Cake In A Flash

Can you believe that Halloween is next week? It seems like once we hit September, time moves in some kind of warp speed! I have to say, right out of the gate, that this is NOT a recipe. Nope. Need a quick holiday dessert and have no time? This Halloween Cake In A Flash uses Duff’s Orange Dream Cake mix, your favorite vanilla buttercream frosting recipe or purchased frosting and a few fast edible embellishments. Marshmallow Ghost Peeps give a little boo in a sweet sea of frosting and – surprise! – candy corn jimmies and White Chocolate Candy Corn M&M’s. Plus a little candy corn garnish on the plate. Seriously, I have to get in a last heaping dose of candy corn for the year! 🙂

My daughter brought home Duff’s Orange Dream Cake mix from Target. “You’re making this, Mom.” No way a Mom says no, right? Most everyone knows Duff, the creative cake genius who had the wildly popular show Ace of Cakes on the Food Network, and is the owner of Charm City Cakes, in my hometown of Baltimore. The cake mix is vanilla with an orange cream flavor packet so you can create an ombre cake.

Well, MY original idea was to create an ombre checkerboard cake. I have a very cool checkerboard cake pan from Chicago Metallic. That particular idea went horribly wrong, through no fault of the cake mix, I must add! My checkerboard cake pans are 9” and the box clearly states that the mix is for 8” pans. I thought it would work if I only baked two layers instead of three. I mixed up the batter, divided it in half and added 2 ½ teaspoons of the orange cream to one bowl. Awesome, bright orange color!

The checkerboard cake pan has an insert, where you add the different colors of batter, and then remove the insert. Well, the problem started as I was adding the orange batter. The batter is very thin and it immediately ran underneath the insert into the other sections. Nope, I didn’t take any photos – I was too busy yanking that insert out and then cleaning off all of the orange batter I had inadvertently flung all over me and most of the kitchen! You know who walked in shaking his old smarty pants head and I’m like, “Don’t say a word!” 🙂

Hmm….it was time for a change of plans! I baked one orange cake layer and one vanilla cake layer in my 9” pans. It took a bit longer for them to bake – about 25 minutes – but they baked up perfectly.

I split each layer in two with my Wilton Cake Leveler so I had 4 layers. I put vanilla frosting between each layer and on the top and sides. The cake got a generous sprinkling of candy corn jimmies and was edged with White Chocolate Candy Corn M&M’s. Have you tried those? I think they are AMAZING and can’t stop eating them! I put a few little marshmallow ghosts on top, decorated the plate with candy corn and added a little Happy Halloween flag. Halloween cake in a flash!

Clearly, this is no professional level cake, but it’s fast, fun and kind of cute, right? Oh, and according to the family, it’s delicious! There’s no doubt Mr. Smarty Pants loves it; half the cake was gone by the next day.

If you have to whip up a special dessert for Halloween and time is really in short supply, grab an Orange Cream Cake mix, a little candy and create cute cake in a flash!

I still want to show you that checkerboard pan…how about a vanilla & fudge checkerboard cream pound cake for Christmas? Maybe we’ll do that!

Comments

That cake is so festive! I love it! I also really love quick and easy ways to make a dessert look stellar without all of the time put into it. I need to pick up a pack of those Peep Ghosts for my sons Halloween party, they are the best!

I love it! I love that it doesn’t look like it came right from a bakery like most of those I come across on the internet! You are so real, like me! I am sure your daughter loved it! I have a big FAIL story about a pavlova I tried to make! My videographer was filming and I have said he should put the fail on YouTube, I think it might be more popular than my real YouTube videos! Thanks for keeping it real, and it is a cute cake!

I agree Cindy, there is some kind of time warp that happens every Fall! I just love your crazy, kitchen mishap stories. You really should set up a video camera in your kitchen, you would have an awesome YouTube Channel following. 🙂 I love Duff, and miss his show. I will have to give his mix a try!

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